|
|
|
Stuart Zender
Bass
Player: Maio 97, pp. 28-33. Stuart Zender: Jamiroquai may not be a household name in
the U.S.-- but if the rest of the world is any indication, Stuart Zender's group will
probably be topping the charts Stateside before long. His fellow bass players have
certainly begun to spread the word about the 22-year-old Englishman, and for good reason.
Zender's highly stylized, confident, and very up-front playing is in many ways the musical
centerpiece of the group's smooth, soulful sound. Across the Pond, Jamiroquai is one of the
most prominent bands going. In fact, its meteoric rise was probably as close as a band can
get to being an "overnight sensation." Initially, the "group"
consisted only of outspoken vocalist Jason Kay and some hand-picked session players.
Scoring a deal with the U.K. indie label Acid Jazz, Kay-- working as Jamiroquai-- recorded
the single "When You Gonna Learn?" in 1992. The song broke wide-open throughout
the U.K. and sparked a major-label bidding war, which was won by Sony.
At the time of our conversation, Zender
was getting ready for a break from Jamiroquai's hectic schedule, during which he, Kay, and
Smith would head out on a catamaran for some R&R during the Christmas holidays. After
that, it was back to work, with a tour of Japan followed by some U.S. dates-- the latter
to coincide with the domestic release of Jamiroquai's third album, Travelling Without
Moving, released in the U.S. in January. Travelling was already a hit in Japan,
Europe, and the U.K., but its release was strategically delayed in North America until a
time when the group could come here and play. "That's been a problem," Zender
figures. "We can't be every place at the same time, so the releases have to be
stifled a bit. You can get the album as an import, of course, but we want everyone to get
the full hit of it all." To date, U.S. music fans have been slow
to discover Jamiroquai, which currently also features guitarist Simon Katz, drummer
Derrick McKenzie, and Wallis on didjeridoo. The band's previous discs, Emergency on
Planet Earth and Return of the Space Cowboy, have garnered a fervent cult fan
base for the group, but they have yet to create the sort of U.S. numbers they do overseas.
Zender thinks it's a matter of categorization. "I think it's because of the type of
music we're doing. It's not new jack swing; it's kind of R&B, but it's not. It's more
a sort of jazz fusion-- which is quite hard to pigeonhole in the States, because it's not
that glossy R&B sound and it's not that dirty grunge sound. A guy at our record
company said a lot of new alternative dance radio stations are starting up in the U.S.;
that could be in our favor, because then we'll get the airplay, and we won't have to fit a
stereotype. We can just be Jamiroquai." The seemingly radio-friendly music
shouldn't have difficulty finding a larger American audience. Jamiroquai blends funky
grooves, soulful feels, dance rhythms, and superb musicianship while rejecting the current
R&B status-quo of sampling and looping the rhythm tracks. It's all the real deal-- and
Zender's playing is often as prominent as Kay's Stevie Wonder-like vocals. "Yeah, a
lot of people say that," Zender admits, referring to the center-stage position his
bass takes in the mixes. "It definitely drives all the songs. There aren't many bands
where the bass is kind of up front, are there?" Even groups that put a lot of emphasis on
the bass in recording often place it in the back seat for live performances-- but Staurt
says this isn't the case with Jamiroquai. "I've got lots of tricks and effects for
playing live. I've got a Boss ME-8B multi-effects, Mu-Trons, a DigiTech Bass Whammy
pedal-- you can drop down two octaves! It's great if you do that through a 50,000-watt PA.
It sends people to the toilet!" Listening to Zender's playing, it's hard
to believe he's only 22-- and it becomes more difficult still when you consider he's
entirely self-taught and doesn't read music. Beyond that, how did a young English guy get
such an affinity for American soul music, much of which is older than he is? "I grew
up in Philadelphia, you know, so I've been around black music pretty much my whole
life." Born in Sheffield, England, Zender moved
to the States at age seven, when his stepfather was transferred to the Philly area.
Settling in Norristown, about 15 miles outside of Philadelphia, Zender attended elementary
school and junior high there before moving back to England at age 15. "If I hadn't
have moved back, I don't know what I'd be doing with my life today. England has given me
the chance to broaden my horizons musically. At my school in the States, everyone was
either into Depeche Mode or Bruce Springsteen; there wasn't a lot of alternative stuff
going around then, and I was dying for it. It's hard to look for interesting new music if
you're in that environment." Zender comes froma musical family. His
father is a musician, his uncle is a flamenco guitarist, and his older sister played in
punk-rock bands while Stuart was in the school marching band. In fact, he met original
Jamiroquai drummer Nick Van Gelder through his sister during her punk days. Zender started
making his own noise while attending junior high school. "My first instrument was the
snare drum. I tell you, lots of bass players started that way; Larry Graham was playing
snare in his school marching band, and he moved from the drums to the bass guitar. That's
pretty much how I started out: I loved the drums, and I was really into playing
them." Back in England, at about age 16, Staurt
was still obsessed with rhythm-- but he found he wanted to change instruments. "I
really loved the sound of the bass; it was really fulfilling for me," he fondly
recalls. "So are beats and rhythms, but the bass just filled up something inside of
me. I'm really drawn to that sound, where so much air is being pushed out." Now, get this: To learn the instrument,
Zender decided to copy, note-for-note, all of Alphonso Johnson's and Jaco Pastorius' bass
parts on Weather Report's Black Market. "I was introduced to that album by a
friend, and I just went crazy. The track that really got me is the one that starts out
with a train [the Jaco-penned "Barbary Coast"]. It's really, really funky. I
went out and bought a cheap bass, and I basically learned the entire album." Talk about baptism by fire! It might seem
this music would be tough for a beginner player to master-- but Stuart shrugs it off.
"I think it might have been easier because my ears had been trained so much from
listening to my uncle; I had gotten used to hearing him practice classical stuff for
hours, so it didn't really strike me as being that unusual. But when I first picked up the
bass, I thought, Wow-- if I ever could play this whole album, that would be just amazing.
Slowly but surely, I did learn it; it became familiar to me, like anything does with
time." How long did it take? "Well, about two weeks. I'm a quick learner,
though. If you've got the drive, and you really want to do something, you can do it. I
really wanted to show my friends I could play that album, and I did it."
Following his intense 1989 woodshedding
period, Zender busted out playing in his only band prior to joining Jamiroquai. "It
was a little punk group that played around the pubs and stuff, but we didn't really do
well. I got fed up with it. I wasn't being musically satisfied; I'd been learning Weather
Report tunes, and there I was stuck onstage, playing these little four-chord songs. I
would always jazz the whole thing up and start doing solos and things like that, and they
would just tell me to shut up. It was an experience to play in front of people, regardless
of whether or not they were throwing bottles at my head." Meanwhile, Stuart's fascination with funk
led him to London clubs, where soul and funk recordings would keep the crowd motivated all
night long. "In London there's a big rare-groove following," he explains,
"a big sort of funk scene." The cornerstonesof rare groove, Zender
explains, are predominantly made by vibist Roy Ayers and trumpeter Donald Byrd in the mid
'70s. When asked about a London funk revival, Zender explains it's been going on for some
time. "I don't know about the clubs in the States, but loads of people here go to
clubs. There's a lot of house, garage, techno, and jungle-- but still, there is a big,
big, big following for funk and rare groove. Most of the R&B you hear now on
the radio is all just loops of '70s music-- you now, with a rap over the top, and maybe a
couple of vocal lines nicked from George Clinton or the Mary Jane Girls, or whatever. It's
all revamped. That's what I call revamping music." Though Jamiroquai plays and sings
everything themselves-- with no "nicking" involved-- the band borrows heavily
from the past glories of funk and soul. "Yeah, we use the Rhodes keyboard, live
drums, live bass, funky guitar, and things like that-- but at the end of the day, we're
living in the '90s. We're almost at the year 2000; there's no possible way you could ever
try to sound retro. I think the instruments we use are retro, but music is like a
big circle. It always comes back to itself." When told most Americans seem to think
the music in merry ol' England centers around the so-called Brit-pop movement, Zender
chuckles. "Well, good luck to them all, you know what I mean?" Referring
specifically to Blur, Oasis, and Kula Shaker, he opines, "That kind of music doesn't
really satisfy me personally-- but let 'em go for it. They've obviously cornered a market,
and the kids seem to like it; they're buying the records. But for me, I prefer the
Beatles!" Jamiroquai's quick success and high
profile have also brought the perks pro musicians can expect: band members being able to
play just about any instruments they want. In Zender's case, that means a Warwick 5-string
the company custom-painted for him. "I had an American Indian Iroquois blanket, and
Warwick painted the pattern of the blanket onto the bass for me. I've also got a Warwick
Streamer Stage I and a Warwick 8-string, which is a 4 with an octave string next to each
standard string. I use it on a tune called "Revolution," from the first album.
It sounds like a guitar is following me." Stuart's amp is a six-tube Trace Elliot V
Type. ("The valves sound just great.") He uses two 4x10 cabinets, also made by
Trace Elliot. "I use Trace strings as well. They make excellent strings." Zender likes to mix up his sound with
effects; he loves his Boss ME-8B, a digital multi-effects unit with choruses, reverbs,
fuzztone, envelope filter, and 18 different synth-bass presets. "That pretty much
takes care of everything. I've got a chorus as well, which I use to pop out some of the
slaps a bit." The ME-8B has stereo outputs, which can send effects separately to the
right or left channels or blend between them. You can hear this in full flight on
"High Times," from Travelling Without Moving. "If you were to strip
down the track, you'd see the real bass is in the middle, the fuzz is on one side, and the
synth is directly opposite," explains Staurt. With the stereo amp setup, certain
settings can provide wild panning effects as well. Zender is also considering adding a
programmable EQ to his rig. "I'd like to have four or five different preset EQs--
which is quite important really, because sometimes when you start slapping, you tend to
lose a bit of the punch. Obviously, the PA guy has got my bass rigged for a certain sound,
and he can't adjust every time-- so I need to compensate. Electronics help to shape the tone of
Zender's bass lines, but technique is even more important to his sound. He is primarily,
but not exclusively, a fingerstyle player. "I love that slap sound, too; I like
actually hitting the open D or G strings when I'm on the E. I also
like dampening, where you put your palm on the end of the strings and play with your
thumb. It provides a kind of double-bassy sound-- like a bass with dead strings. Zender's
palming method can be heard on "Drifting Along" and "Didgital
Vibrations," both from Travelling. "That's basically what the Studio One
people used to do," he mentions. "All those dub-reggae guys wouldn't change
their strings; they'd have the same set on their bass for years, and if a string broke,
they'd fix it rather than replace it. That sound is big, round, and sometimes slightly
out, because the strings are so old you can't really tell if the tuning's right."
Stuart also occasionally uses a pick, sometimes coupled with his palming technique.
"I use a pick live on 'Travelling Without Moving,' although I don't think I used one
on the album. It gets an edge on it, you know? And if you dampen it as well, the notes get
more staccato. It sounds really good." It seems with so much success for the
young Zender, the sky is really the limit-- although, no doubt, conquering America is
still to be checked off the list. But Stuart is not without his goals, which include
learning to read and write music. "I would love to learn how to get it all written
down," he says, "because sometimes when you want to communicate an idea to
someone, it's a lot easier than singing. You can hand it over and say, 'Look-- here's my
song.'" In the mean time, surely guest
appearances and side projects must be in the works, right? "I did some rap stuff for
Gang Starr, but I haven't really been around to actually accept any offers or anything. I
would like to work with some other people, but I think I need to wait until Jamiroquai has
some time off!" Outside of straight session work, Zender admits to having a side
project on the back burner. "It's in a vein of A Tribe Called Quest. It's a hip-hop
kind of thing-- using those sorts of beats-- but it's more melodic, instead of just one
groove that goes on and on. I'm going to get various rappers and singers to do stuff on
it, but it will be mostly live music, with some sampled material as well." Having learned by sheer determination--
combined with obvious natural talent-- Zender has graduated early to the big time. His
natural knack for playing by ear, as well as his talent for combining techniques to make
his own funky sound, have led him to one major conclusion: "There are no rules. If
you can get a sound by using a pick-- or even a pickle jar-- go for it." ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bassist: February
1998 Jamiroquai's Stuart Zender Special thanks are due to Nik Hunt and
David Rowe for helping me get my hands on this article quicker than I ever would have
thought possible. London's acid jazz scene is going
seriously international with bands like Jamiroquai. Gibson Keddie caught the Travelling
groove.
"Yeah, they'd say, ' Hey, this just
sounds a bit too acid jazz for us,'" he continues, obviously still amazed by the
experience, "and they were throwing R Kelly CDs in our faces to 'inspire' a new
direction for us! Can you believe that? De Angelo's songs, too, though he's a good friend
anyway. You just can't bust into someone's recording session like they did, shouting, 'Oh,
no, this is never gonna work in America...' We just kept on, although it was very
demoralising. No one there had any faith at all. Six million albums later, they're all,
'Hey man, I knew it would do well.' I always check certain people when they give me that
bullshit now, one guy in particular, I said, ' No, you didn't, man. Cast your mind back
and remember your opinion was, 'No! Too acid jazz, guys. It's never gonna work'. I'm not
bitter, although I did take it on board at the time, and it hurt," recalls Stuart.
'Now it's a good little lesson, 'cause I won't listen to people like that - I won't take
it on board again." Tough third album? In many ways it was 'make or break' time
for the former North London acid jazzers (how the hell did it get called that? It isn't
acid, and certainly ain't jazz. . .). That ever-present 'difficult' third album syndrome
awaited Jamiroquai at the start of Travelling, but when frontman Jay Kay released the
original 92 recording of 'When You Gonna Learn', he didn't even have a band per se, as
Stuart points out, mainly a floating pool of 'help out' players who, maybe, weren't too
sympathetic to the new J'quai groove (even though Brand New Heavies' basscat, Andrew Levy,
performed low-end duties for that track). Soon after, having added a regular hard-core
funk team to the roster and, of course, a didgeridoo, the first album, Emergency On Planet
Earth, head-rushed its way towards being a sizeable hit. Zender joined up with the JK team
later that year, playing first on 'Too Young To Die'. So, difficult third album? The young
bassist shakes his head; he doesn't agree with this principle. "Nah, they said that
about the second one, too. I'm not gonna forget, Jay's not gonna forget, no-one else in
the band is gonna forget that first of all we're musicians; we write music to please
ourselves and hopefully other people. There was a lot of pressure with the second album
too - 'Get it out! Come on, you've gotta do it!' Now we've established ourselves, and
everyone knows who we are; we've got a good fan base, so we can take our time in thinking
what we're going to do with the fourth album. There'll be remixes and stuff to come, but
we're looking at April 98-time to release that new one, and just chill. Work's always in
progress; when we're on the road, we're always writing. It's just that we want to have the
time to relax and reflect on what's actually happened and with all the bullshit that
everyone's seen, to digest it and out it in a positive way. Wah," he shrieks,
laughing at his own profundity, "that's some mouthful of phil-o-so-phee!" Cosmic trip Stuart actually grew up in Philadelphia,
in the States, and cites this as a major factor responsible for his rhythmic abilities and
musical influences. "The octaves we used were standard
disco stuff in the style of - God bless him - Chic's Bernard Edwards. He wasn't the
tightest of players but it was just his sound and his moves, I loved it, I was very
inspired by stuff like, 'My Forbidden Lover'. Bernard actually died just before that track
was recorded," he remembers, "maybe it was some subtle tribute to Bernard -
keeping the disco thing alive!"Do you get the chance to try out different grooves for
Jay's songs? "Yeah, basically we're in the studio together and Toby will be faffing
about on the keyboard doing some chords, then I'll do a b-line to it and then Jay will
start doing some other melodies and that's how the songs evolve. The grooves between me
and Derrick (McKenzie, drummer) just come quite naturally; we're not doing those tried and
tested grooves that everyone else is doing - those Mary J Blige type samples - we're
trying to be a bit different without trying to be different - we don't wanna be contrived.
But we must re-charge our inspiration batteries, otherwise we'll end up writing about
hotel room service, coz that's all we've seen for two years. Or hotel 'Pay TV ' - haha,
oops..." Sampling Speaking of samples... "I hate
people thinking that we use samples in Jamiroquai, but I have to say that I personally do
listen to a lot of hip-hop music. Touring "I like to go out and do one big
tour for six months and then finish - but it never works like that because the demand
increases - here, there, there. Then the managers try to coin it in on the side, over
there. In the end, you do more work and stress yourself out, jeopardising the
relationships you have with other band members 'cause you're in each others' pockets 24
hours a day. My nerves have been a bit frayed on this tour, we've got this last three date
stint in the States, and that's fine. Everyone's taking a break and chilling out. We were
supposed to do a longer tour in America - they wanted another month and a half - but after
a year's touring it's, like, 'No way! I don't think so! Ideally, you wanna go and give it
everything and stop; not give it everything, then 'oh, can you give a bit more? A bit
more? Just a bit more and you'll be home...' Agony." Big break As you may have realised from Stuart's
comments regarding the, er, controversial American input at the start of this feature, the
band are putting their backs into major success in the US - there lies superstardom.
"America is the last 'territory' for us to break, really," comments Stuart,
"and it's being broken at the moment. After we played on the the MTV music awards,
the office phone didn't stop ringing; we had to get in extra staff to deal with the
interest in us. We're doing lots of TV shows out there and it's good, because this album
in the States alone sold two million - that's cool. The first album sold 200," he
jokes, "Nah, maybe 10,000 copies, if that. But we had underground appeal with that
first album, and all our fans there didn't have no money anyway!" he cackles... American TV "American TV shows are funny. We
take a totally English crew out there, and they just cane everybody. I've seen so many
fights between American crews and our English crew. The English crew are very arrogant,
but it's just like being in the army - job to do; do it! Americans think we're a very
intimidating band, 'cause there's just so many of us when we go we take our own little
vibe with us. We get to these US shows and there's all this artificial bullshit going on -
fake everything. It is fun doing them, sometimes, though. Jay Leno (talk show host) was
good, he was cool. David Letterman's studio is freezing - it's an ice box. He doesn't want
to sweat on camera, so he gets all the air-conditioning turned up maximum cold. Believe
me, it's really hard to play when it's -10° centigrade, David!" Next Jamiroquai album "This will be the album that'll be
like BOOM! And after it's all through, we'll get three years off, I'll get married, have
kids, get divorced, lose all the money, end up on drugs... Just kidding," he
winks...Scallywag. Funky Warwicks! "There's two basses basically.
There's the multi-colored one which I took from the pattern of a native American blanket
worn by Chief Joseph from the Iroquois. I took a section of that and put it on the bass.
It looks good. Then I met Martin Sims and he offered to take my other bass away (ha...!)
and fit it with red LEDs beneath the Ying and Yang dot markers that Warwick put in. I
asked him how he did it, but he just said, 'You don't wanna know...'
And, speaking of Mark King, Stuart leans
over to the tape recorder's mic... "I'm still waiting to meet you,
Mark, mate! I've heard he's keen to meet me too. Yeah, I'd love to go and meet him in the
Isle of Wight, and sit and listen to him. When I grew up, songs by Level 42, like 'Lessons
In Love,' were in the US charts. They were the only 'real' tunes that stuck in my brain
because they were a bit more funky - even though they were pop tunes, they were more funky
than anything else. "I love Stanley Clarke's playing
too; I'm really inspired by him and Alphonso Johnson. Wehn Alphonso plays, he's not just
playing, he's 'talking' on the bass all the time, and I like that. He's playing his
emotions, you can hear it in the way he plays." And thereby hangs a tale, which Stuart
recounts. Eager to get his chops up on a bass as quickly as possible, a novice Stuart
Zender bought a budget bass and copped all the parts on Weather Report's album, Black
Market, having assumed that the bass parts were all played by errant genius Jaco
Pastorius. "I didn't know that Black Market
was done by Jaco and Alphonso," Zender admits, "but it makes sense. Their
styles were kind of similar as well. Alphonso's a very learned player - and I'm not!"
he stutters. "But if you wanna give me some lessons, Alphonso, I'm here!" Stuart Zender - Gadget Man
|
"I turned up after
that first single," says the amiable and enthusiastic Zender. "Basically, Jay
was using various musicians from Acid Jazz, including Andrew Levy on bass, who is the
Brand New Heavies' bass player and a good friend of ours. Jay had a good voice and
everything, but he didn't have a solid band; it was just these Acid Jazz types, being sort
of unhelpful with him. Then he was introduced to Toby Smith, the keyboard player, and
drummer Nick Van Gelder, who knew me-- and from there, we got on like a house on fire. It
was just a perfect combination, because we were all into the same music and the same
vibe."
From there, Zender moved
on to "anything I could get my ears onto! Stanley Clarke's first album [Stanley
Clarke], was the second one I learned. I listend to lots of funky stuff, like James
Brown records, which have simpler bass lines. From there, I delved deeper into the Weather
Report file." Other bassists who have inspired Stuart include Motown's James Jamerson
and original Tackhead bassman Doug Wimbish. "Doug inspired me quite a lot, because
he's just a nutter, basically; he's really mad. I watched him play, and I just
thought, God-- there really are no limits to this thing. I was told that if you meet Doug,
you either give up playing or get inspired; luckily he inspired me. I like weird players,
as well. Mick Karn is a really weird palyer, and like me, he plays completely by ear. He
can't read a note of music, but he's still quite talented. I just like quirky bass
players-- one's that don't play the standard licks. Me'Shell [NdegeOcello] is on my tip as
well-- she's great."
"There was a lot of doubt from
record company people when we were recording the latest album, Travelling Without
Moving, especially from the Americans, who were butting in with their 'opinions' about
how the album was sounding to their finely-tuned commercial ears. . ." Jamiroquai
bassist Stuart Zender barely keeps the contempt out of his voice; after all, no band in
recent years has ploughed such a quirkily individual furrow in terms of direction or
sound. When a Jamiroquai record comes on the radio, you know immediately, thanks to a
funksome backing over singer Jason Kay's unique white soul muse, exactly who's playing.
Most bands would kill for such an instantly identifiable sound, and now, after
considerable success, the record company wants to 'modify' their appeal... It's not too
difficult, then, to understand Zender's disparaging comments. 
Being white, he was in an absolute minority at his high school,
and got beat up more often than he cares to remember. "Don't tell me that racism -
which I detest - doesn't work the other way" is his painful conclusion from those
early years. But he knows why his band is successful, and is suitably realistic in terms
of the musical content, though even he would admit to some surprise at the sales totals
thus far. "'Cosmic Girl', one of the biggest hits so far, is not really the most
musical of tunes, but it's a good disco dance-y pop hit, really. At the end of the day,
none of it's sampled at all, though, it's us. The textures are all there, being played
live by young people of today." Yeah. Dig those funky bass octave patterns in 'Cosmic
Girl' - very 70s disco! 
I think some of the weirder samples
are good: stuff like A Tribe Called Quest; you can hear that it's special. I enjoy doing
that stuff, too, I muck about a lot at home with those techniques. So I'd say it's OK to
sample, but just do it well, OK? Jay, on the other hand, is probably not liking of
samples."What about the possibility of Jamiroquai using loop patterns live, a system
that would perhaps leave Stuart to be more free to experiment a bit? He sees distinct
possibilities in this, though, surprisingly, perhaps not related to his bass playing.
"Y'know what, with this new album, because we'll probably be doing stadium tours by
then, we might actually bring in some looping things into some songs. Not too much,
because when you start bringing clicks into every track, it gets too 'corporate', yeah? No
room to groove. But I reckon I'm gonna be putting my bass down this next time, and picking
up a drum - a big Brazilian drum called a soordoo - on this next tour, and I'm going to go
for it! On our live gigs at the moment, there's a latin breakdown section, and I'm doing
those very slapped rhythmic patterns on the bass, anyway. Now I want to try it out on
actual percussion." 
"Practically speaking - it's
good. I don't really look at the fretboard that often, but there's certain sections where
the stage is blacked out, so it's cool them. From an audience point of view, it's part of
the show, and it's nice to think, 'Ooh, that's different. Oh, wow, the geezer's for lights
on his bass!'" Stuart laughs at this statement, which triggers his own memory of the
effect. "I first saw it with Mark King's Alembic bass, and was like, 'Oh God, that's
amazing. It's neat!'" 
"Yeah, I really am; and it
really annoys my girlfriend! All girls hate gadget men, don't they? I just love fun toys
and gadgets with hydraulics, servo motors, trinkets, LEDs. Electric things, whatever, I
just love computer things! Wicked!